Darling Valve - Williamsport, PA An excerpt from Darling Catalog No. 17:
"Founded in 1888 as Darling Pump & Mfg. Co., Ltd., the company was organized to manufacture and sell
Darling oil well pumps and supplies and engage in the business of general brass founding and
machining." In 1902 the company began making fire hydrants in addition to other fire protection
and water-line accessories. In 1917, after the death of one of the founders, it was incorporated
as Darling Valve and Mfg. Co.

Darling Valve was purchased by American Cast Iron Pipe Company in 1969. The company was then relocated to Birmingham, Alabama under the name of American Darling. The currently manufactured hydrants look much the same as the older Darling Valve fire hydrants.

Most of the Darling hydrant models look very similar and are therefore difficult to tell apart. The information presented below attempts to show the differences by separating them by time period and markings.

The barrel diameter of Darling hydrants is larger, for a given V.O. (valve opening) size,
than those of other manufacturers.

For all but the first model, it can be noted that 4" V.O. size hydrants have 6 bonnet bolts, 5" V.O.
size have 8 bonnet bolts, and 6" V.O. size have 10 bonnet bolts. This makes size
determination easy.

For all but the first model, V.O. size is cast onto the barrels of all models and vintages of Darling hydrants.

For all but the first model, "DARLING" is plainly cast onto the top of the bonnet.

"DARLING P & M CO"

We believe this to be the first Darling model. The two hydrants shown below
may actually be different models. The hydrants have
the company name and location cast into the top surface of the bonnet between
the bolt heads. There is no embossing indicating model designation nor valve opening size.

All known Darling hydrants of this vintage are of a 1 piece barrel design.

This group is divided below into three subgroups by bonnet shape. Firehydrant.org does not
know if there was a functional reason for the different shapes or the reasons were simply appearance.
Within each subgroup they are listed in increasing V.O. size and increasing number of nozzles.

The bonnets of this first subgroup have the familiar shape of today's Darling hydrants.
Included with this group is #2195 which has a fluted bonnet; perhaps representing a transition
in design thinking between the first model shown above and subsequent hydrants.